Local Action Will Save Us
Yesterday, the President of the United States yelled at the President of Ukraine on TV, telling him to be more grateful, that he was toying with World War 3. He praised the President of Russia, the aggressor, the bad guy. They fired the chair of the Joint Chiefs, General CQ Brown, a Black man, for being a DEI hire, and promoted a white man in his place, who they had to get special permission to hire because he was under-qualified. They’re telling all the trans people in the military to pack it in - there’s no place for them in the military anymore.
I was feeling upset about all of this yesterday when I went to the Malden Warming Center. I don’t usually go in on Friday nights lately. This year is my first as the President of the Board of Directors. My regular volunteer shift this winter has been Mondays at 9pm. This week, however, our Executive Director had a family emergency, and I offered to cover check-in a couple nights. So I went in to help out. It was a pretty busy, chaotic night. We had more guests than we could offer a space to for the night and the other warming centers in the region were also full. It took a few hours to feed the overflow guests and find somewhere to send them for the night.
The reason I’m writing this, though, is because of an interaction I had in the midst of the chaos. One of the guests who couldn’t stay asked me if she could have a hairbrush, so I went to our donations room to ask the volunteers for a brush. I got in line behind a guest, George*, who was asking for a few clothing items. George is Black and queer. They often wear their hair in fun styles or a wig. Last year and the year before, when I was the assistant director of the warming center and I was there more often, George and I would talk a lot about our nails. We often wore similar colored nail polish. They like eyeliner in blue or gold. I have always liked George. They are quiet and kind and they always call me “mama.”
While I was waiting behind George, they were asking the volunteer, an older woman with white hair, in the donations room for clothes. She had already pulled some underwear for them, floral granny panties, and set them aside. George asked for a sweatshirt from the women’s section and the volunteer obliged. The first thing she brought out was a hunter green hoodie. George was not satisfied. “Do you have something in a brighter color? Pink or red or even blue? You know, something fun? Even black would be better.”
The volunteer went back to the sweatshirt section. George and I chatted a bit more about how they have been doing this season and what we have both been up to. The volunteer came back out with a black hoodie. George said thank you. I got the hairbrush for the other guest. The volunteer interrupted us before we left and said, “you know, there are a few other fun things that aren’t sweatshirts. I have some sweaters that are like what Emily is wearing. Do you want to see them?” George said they did, but they wanted to eat dinner before it got cold. They said they’d come back in a little bit, and thanked the volunteer again. George took their sweatshirt and underwear back to their cube and I dove back into the chaos of the center.
The Malden Warming Center closes for the season at the end of this month. We are open December through March, the coldest part of the year. The point of the center is to have a warm, safe place for people to go when they have nowhere else.
It’s also a warm, safe place for people to go when the rest of the world feels cold, calculating, unsafe, and unkind.
Last night, an older white woman spent her Friday night in a small, fluorescent-lit room fetching women’s clothing for a Black queer person; a person who a lot of people in this country have said they do not want to promote, help, or protect.
It was really nice to see.
It made me feel pretty warm and safe. When things in the country as a whole feel really out of control and awful, it is nice to see people in community with each other, helping the most vulnerable among them, and giving them a chance to ask for a cuter top.
The Malden Warming Center
*Name has been changed.
